Back in August, parts of Westminster became fixated with the narrative that Sue Gray, Downing Street’s chief of staff, was at war with Morgan McSweeney, Keir Starmer’s head of political strategy. I was sceptical, it somehow felt too convenient – an attempt to recreate the Blair-Brown feud by proxy.
I asked Labour aides across government what was really going on. “It’s not Sue vs Morgan; it’s Sue vs everyone,” I was repeatedly told. As I first revealed on 28 August, special advisers are unionising over pay and other grievances. After an exhausting election year, many were outraged to discover that they would be paid less than in opposition and less than their Conservative predecessors.
This had the effect of challenging two competing narratives: that the struggle between Gray and McSweeney defined government (though Whitehall veterans are struck that they report separately to Starmer), and that the animosity towards Gray was purely personal (with her cast as a 21st-century Marcia Williams). These were differences of substance, not just of style.
It’s in this context that the BBC’s exclusive on Gray’s pay must be seen. On one level, the news is unsurprising. Gray, a Whitehall veteran, is paid a salary of £170,000 (comparable to that earned by Dominic Cummings in 2020 once adjusted for inflation). But in the fraught Labour climate, the story is incendiary. Special advisers’ complaint is precisely that they are paid less than their Tory predecessors; Gray is paid more than any adviser in history. It’s the relative, not the absolute pay that matters here (Gray, crucially, sits on the four-person committee that sets adviser salaries).
A government source denied the BBC’s claim that Gray was advised to “go for a few thousand pounds less than the Prime Minister to avoid this very story”.
“This allegation is categorically untrue,” they said. “Sue Gray had no involvement in any decision on her pay. She was informed of her salary after this had been set.”
The rise in Gray’s salary is thought to have been signed off by Starmer, who remains fiercely loyal to his chief of staff. But the process is now less important than the reality: an evermore dysfunctional administration. Vituperative briefings are filling the media (“Sue Gray is the only pensioner better off under Labour,” a senior party source acidly remarked yesterday). Advisers are refusing to sign contracts. A two-month-old government is at war with itself.
It’s worth stating that Gray has her defenders. Ministers say that having seen Whitehall up close, they believe her insider knowledge is more essential than ever. When I recently interviewed Sadiq Khan he praised Gray as a “game-changer” for transforming relations between Starmer and the metro mayors.
But the word that MPs from all wings of Labour use is “unsustainable”. One Starmer ally observed to me: “Why take on spads? There was so much goodwill around Sue. It’s now become about competence.”
A No 10 insider said simply: “Somebody has to hit the maximum chaos button.” The question is: who will?
This piece first appeared in the Morning Call newsletter; receive it every morning by subscribing on Substack here.
[See also: What’s the story?]
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